In the News

June 6, 2012 | Voting along party lines, a House panel on Wednesday rejected a new Federal Communications Commission rule that would shed some light on political advertisements by candidates and others -- including secretive outside groups.

October 14, 2009 | MO' MONEY, MO' MONEY: It's the eve of the next round of federal campaign finance filings, and we're as curious as anyone as to who will win the award as the nation's most notable campaign fund-raiser for the third quarter of this year.

August 21, 2009 | O, SAY, CAN YOU TWEET: There's nary a member of Congress who isn't busy tweeting on Twitter and posting Facebook status messages. These two social networking tools are now an integral part of the campaign arsenal -- but the companies responsible for our daily dose of instant chit chat are also making some political moves of their own.

August 7, 2009 | While some lawmakers are grappling with the forged letters they received from embattled lobbying firm Bonner and Associates this summer, others might be considering their financial ties to the firm.

June 25, 2009 | Here's a cool tool that brings together data from various parts of OpenSecrets.org to show how much money each current lawmaker has raised from various health-related industries and the health sector overall since 1989 (including President Obama's haul).

June 15, 2009 | The House Ethics Committee members who began an investigation into the activities of now-defunct lobbying firm PMA Group last week have received relatively little in the way of campaign donations from the firm and its defense-contractor clients.

September 23, 2008 | The last time Congress seriously debated how to regulate the financial industry, the result was legislation that allowed the nation's largest banks to get even larger and take risks that had been prohibited since the Great Depression. A look back at that debate, which was over the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, reveals that campaign contributions may have influenced the votes of politicians who, a decade later, are now grappling with the implosion of the giant banks they helped to foster.

September 10, 2008 | Now that the federal government has bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from their impending financial doom, Congress has an even greater interest in seeing the giant mortgage buyers succeed-some lawmakers perhaps more than others. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 28 lawmakers had between $598,100 and $1.7 million of their own money invested in the two companies last year.

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